For nearly 30 years we have enjoyed living in Niagara-on-the-Lake and have admired many of the lovely character homes in old town. We have always wanted to own a cottage rental property in our beautiful community so were excited to purchase this cottage in 2012. It’s location on a quiet residential street is ideal for relaxation and yet close enough to walk to all major attractions in town.  When we spent many hours there preparing the cottage for rental, we often remarked on how peaceful the neighborhood is.

Since the cottage is close to the marina, we went with a nautical theme and chose the name “Hawsepiper Cottage”.

– Peter and Darla

From Wikipedia:

Hawsepiper is an informal maritime industry term used to refer to a merchant ship’s officer who began his or her career as an unlicensed merchant seaman and did not attend a traditional maritime college/academy to earn the officer license.

A ship’s hawse pipe is the pipe passing through the bow section of a ship that the anchor chain passes through. Hawsepiper refers to climbing up the hawse pipe, a nautical metaphor for climbing up the ship’s rank structure. This is in turn derived from the traditional British Naval usage of “came up through the hawsehole,” referring to sailors who first entered the ship as foremast jacks before becoming officers, metaphorically by climbing up the hawser without great honor or respect, rather than being received directly onto the quarterdeck.

From the Urban Dictionary: 

Hawsepiper:  A person of high rank who did not go to college.